Ivan Rakitić

[DonAK]

Or we can look at the post he's quoting and replying to.



etc.

There is no way you can try to rationalize that drivel. It's just dishonest.

 

[Sorin]

You see where the priorities are when people go out of their way to defend asinine posts.

All I said is that BBZ didn't state Raki was better and more important than Lionel Messi last season. He was talking about big matches in the CL. And I agree, he's blown it out of proportions. But so do you now.

Agree to disagree. Let's move on.

 

[RMU ReBorn]

Because when I brought it up you didn't have any problem with me mentioning the crass overrating of Rakitic in that comment. You brought up position, so it seemed to me that you low-key considered it valid. My bad. That's fair enough, however BBZ is one of the more vocal ones on these forums so it pops up more when he posts this kind of non-sense.

Anyway, let's leave it as it is since i'm not necessarily disagreeing with but I have slightly different views with how we should play and what's best going forward. Could be wrong as I don't pretend to be a know-all expert but yeah.

Edit: [MENTION=22463]Joan Laporta[/MENTION] Stop defending him since what Messi did against Chelsea in CL last blows anything Raki did out of the water CL+League combined. Wasn't that a big game too? Or is the Roma the only one? How about against Juve? Against Atleti? Sevilla from 2 up? Aren't those big matches? He straight up went full-retard, there's no two ways about it.

fair enough

 

[Vilarrubi]

Even more responsible for that defeat than the midfield was the formation and the tactics from EV

[youtube]KMtj0es0704&t=100s[/youtube]

Yep. Roberto shouldn’t have been on the field.. as a midfielder anyway. But you’d think with the quality and experience we had on the field we would not get beaten 3-0. The mental aspect of this game was huge.. we never looked like doing anything until 3-0.

 

[Joan]

There is no way you can try to rationalize that drivel. It's just dishonest.

And I'm not. Don't agree with it either.

 

[Voldblake]

90% of those who are shitting on Rakitic are those who drools over Pep and his style . Barca played possession football after Pep but was much direct giving less importance to midfield with MSN as the focal point . And In last season we played 442 for the major part . Pep's style is different and was heavily dependent on a genius like Xavi . That's why he hasn't won a knock out tie convincingly against any top European teams after he left Barca

90%? Where do you get that from? You sound a lot like someone called LeeRomeno who keeps on creating false narratives to satisfy your arguments that you keep repeating over and over again.

We are still playing possession with or without Pep and only Enrique introduced a more direct and counter attacking style.

Stop trolling.

 

[BBZ8800]

Than he should write it. If he can write those posts that are longer than the Transsiberian railway, he could add in CL to that post.

Sorry, yeah.
Messi is gone missing in Champions league knockout matches.
Messi hasn't scored in 12 out of 13 last Cl finals, semis and quarters.

I surely wasn't talking about La liga.
You could have learned by now that I am obssessed about Champions league.
And don't care about Cdr, for example.

So, about La liga, Messi was awesome.
Mats was awesome.
Majority of players were awesome.

I was talking about a Cl.
Majority of people say about Rakitic: he wasn't able to do anything in midfield against Roma.
And that is one of main reasons why people want better midfielders.

Regarding Roma and a Cl, what has Messi done in the last 6-7 big quarters Cl away matches?
What has Messi done in Rome, Torino, Paris?
What has Busi done in those matches?
Let me guess: they couldn't play well because of Rakitic who was pulling them down?

Imo, Raki is now a scapegoat for Roma's match, while Messi hasn't scored in 12 out 13 big cl knockout rounds and a whole team hasn't scored in last 90% of big away quarters and semis matches.

Raki isn't perfect.
But in a Cl knockout matches, Iniesta, Busi and YES Messi, were more or less equally as bad in the last few years, except Messi in 2015.

So, you guys are expecting magic with benching Raki and expecting wonders from other guys who are equally as meh on the biggest stage for years.

If you want magic and changes, then you should rather bench all: Luis, Busi, Raki, Iniesta (luckily gone).

 

[soul24rage]

Yep. Roberto shouldn’t have been on the field.. as a midfielder anyway. But you’d think with the quality and experience we had on the field we would not get beaten 3-0. The mental aspect of this game was huge.. we never looked like doing anything until 3-0.

I saw the game as that Roma knew that their tactics were working really well from the beginning and their confidence grew because of that and for the early first goal while it was the total opposite for Barca. That was very clear to see from the first half and EV should have changed something on half time.

Despite all of that, I agree with you that we shouldn't have been beaten that badly with our quality and experience and I think that the players should have changed the tactics on their hands to a 4-3-3 like Rakitic-Busi-Roberto----Messi-Suarez-Iniesta at half time if EV wasn't willing to change anything by then. Even Iniesta said that we had to change something at half time and it was up to the coach to offer a solution or a change to a problem that was very clear to see.

 

[Sorin]

The most damning thing was that after Roma scored the third goal, we actually pushed them back in their own box for the remaining minutes, which was too late unfortunately. So we had the right mentality but only after we were out. Can't help but think the players and Valverde were planing on doing the minimum necessary and playing some pragmatic shit, style that didn't suit our players one bit. Water under the bridge at this point so it's pointless mulling this over and over again. Let's hope we learned from it.

 

[RMU ReBorn]

90%? Where do you get that from? You sound a lot like someone called LeeRomeno who keeps on creating false narratives to satisfy your arguments that you keep repeating over and over again.

We are still playing possession with or without Pep and only Enrique introduced a more direct and counter attacking style.

Stop trolling.

we weren't playing just possession football under Ev . Our defenders were comfortable even without the ball and didn't had much possession against Chelsea compared to past . That's not creating false narrative . It's a fact . You don't need to conduct a poll to find out who all are shitting on Rakitic ; just need to observe .

Sorry, yeah.
Messi is gone missing in Champions league knockout matches.
Messi hasn't scored in 12 out of 13 last Cl finals, semis and quarters.

I surely wasn't talking about La liga.
You could have learned by now that I am obssessed about Champions league.
And don't care about Cdr, for example.

So, about La liga, Messi was awesome.
Mats was awesome.
Majority of players were awesome.

I was talking about a Cl

Regarding Roma and a Cl, what has Messi done in the last 6-7 big quarters Cl away matches?
What has Messi done in Rome, Torino, Paris?

In Turin he created two clear cut chances for Suarez and Iniesta . Should have ended up with two assists if their finishing was clinical . He was our best player

2013 Vs Psg . He was injured and yet had to come out after 60 th minute to save our ass . Sure pedro scored the goal ,but you can see how well Barca came back after his substitution . He was half fit against a very good Bayern side .

He was on goat level against all the teams in knock out stage in 2015 . Messi don't need to score to be the best player in the team . You are obsessed with ' Messi not scoring goals ' narrative

in 2016 & 2014 . He was poor against Atletico
but you have to take in to account that he was the major reason why we got past Arsenal in 2016 , Man city in 2014 , chelsea in 2018 . And played a crucial part in the historic win against PSG . I mean he was able to adjust to 3-4-3 playing a central role in midfield .

 

[GOAT_SUAREZ]

what are people arguing about?

Rakitic isn't leaving and he will be a starter.

Nothing more needs to be said.

 

[Andrew M]

The most damning thing was that after Roma scored the third goal, we actually pushed them back in their own box for the remaining minutes, which was too late unfortunately. So we had the right mentality but only after we were out. Can't help but think the players and Valverde were planing on doing the minimum necessary and playing some pragmatic shit, style that didn't suit our players one bit. Water under the bridge at this point so it's pointless mulling this over and over again. Let's hope we learned from it.

That shift in momentum you're describing could be derived from the sudden nothing to lose mentality that would occur with us after letting in the 3rd goal and Roma suddenly feeling they have everything to lose and dropping back

 

[KingLeo10]

I meant, in a Cl.
The whole team and Messi goes missing too often.

I surely wasn't talking about Cdr, and Atletico in La liga.

Paris, Rome, Torino, Atletico twice in a Cl, well you can count a lot of MIA matches for Messi, Iniesta, Busi, everyone.

About Cr vs Messi, it works both ways:
Messi was winning Cls only with a prime team.
Cr7 won CLs also with a prime team.

Yet, Cr7 won 4 out of 5 with his prime team, and 3 in a row.
Messi won only 2 out of 4.

I know: luck will be eternal answer.

We are going offtopic.
Cold reality: cr won more on a biggest stage than Messi.
Iniesta, Busi, Messi are all gone missing too often on a big stage, not only Raki.

Our last 4 knockout matches away:
Psg 0:4
Juve 0:3
Chelsea 1:1
Roma 0:3

1:12 in total.
For a team with Messi, Iniesta, Busi.
Something is just wrong.
NOT only poor scapegoat Rakitic and even EV.

dude, the fact that it works both ways is the precise thing I'm trying to get across to you. It's all about context. no one is taking anything away from CR7's achievements in CL. I'm just arguing against your mental strength narrative because unless you're telling me CR7's mental strength was not developed before 2013 and messi's mental strength disappeared since 2015, the narrative is flawed.

I'm not going to get into CL counts with you. You completely ignore the level of play, the level of performances, the level of competition, and other significant trophies won by the team such as La Liga (and this isn't some bundesliga or serie A, we have to beat real madrid every time and recently atletico).

as for CL, you only care about the trophy count at the end of the day, regardless of how it was achieved. that's antithetical to being a barca fan IMO. I agree that the team and Messi have been bad in CL last 3 seasons, but if they give 100% and put on a great fight next season, while falling short of winning it, I would be content. you'd probably still be peddling these 20 paragraph posts on what went wrong while continually changing the goalpost.

 

[Sorin]

That shift in momentum you're describing could be derived from the sudden nothing to lose mentality that would occur with us after letting in the 3rd goal and Roma suddenly feeling they have everything to lose and dropping back

Besides the fact that we should've tried to attack a lot more from the get go, instead of that pragmatic style I mentioned previously, at least at half time we should've changed our approach since were being run over by dropping back so low. Dembele should've been deployed on that right flank at half time as they had 3 at the back so space galore for him. But subbing in Gomes at 2-0 really opened up my eyes at how Valverde really planned this match. At that point the dude still tried to be pragmatic and defend our slight advantage. That's the message he transmitted to the other players with that substitution too. Suffice to say it was very, very wrong.

 

[Sorin]

In my opinion, his best CL match in the last 5 years was the one against ManCity 1-0 in 2015. Messi didn't score but that performance was absolutely orgasmic. He dismantled them pass by pass, he humiliated them dribble by dribble. One of the most complete performances I have witnessed in my life.

Plus for the Rakitic fans, he scored the only goal in that match. Of course from Messi's pass.